Parenting, and Mermaids With Garden Hoses

Ha! Betcha THAT title made you look, eh? But seriously - I AM writing a blog about Parenting and about, well, Mermaids with Garden Hoses.

Let's start off with the parenting. A story broke last week in Tampa about a 16 year-old girl who didn't wear panties to school on picture day. She ended up sitting in the front row, in a skirt, on the bleachers for a club picture. You can see where this is heading. That's right - her privates ended up on display in the yearbook. Apparently the yearbook staff didn't catch it. The yearbook publisher didn't catch it. No one noticed it until some of the yearbooks went home.

There are just sooooooooooooooo many things wrong with this. Pantyless-girl's Mom is - of course - mortified that her little girl's vajayjay is now recorded for posterity in 2000 yearbooks. (Won't THAT be a blast at the 20 year reunion?!?) Yes - the yearbook staff should have caught it. Yes - the publisher should have caught it. No - the school probably should not have distributed the yearbooks. (Word is that not all of them were out yet when all this exploded, but the school decided the damage was already done, and handed out the rest.)

The girl claims that she went commando "because she didn't want pantylines."

A) There are undergarments out there that handle pantylines. B) What on earth is she wearing TO SCHOOL that's so tight she has to even worry about pantylines? C) Why would she - knowing she had on no panties - SIT DOWN ON THE FRONT ROW OF THE BLEACHERS? A teacher friend of mine also told me that the High School in question has stairs that you can see through as you go up. The girl has been going to school there for 2 years - she KNOWS this.

So face it Mom: little Britney-to-be just ain't that innocent. That girl did that on purpose. Was it to get attention? Was it so she could have a quickie in the bathroom? Who knows. She maybe didn't realize all that would be visible in a yearbook pic, but come on.

This is where the parenting comes in. Mom is now blaming everyone - the school, the yearbook staff, the photographer, the publisher - everyone for the existence of the picture. The only person she doesn't seem to be blaming is THE GIRL WHO CHOSE NOT TO WEAR PANTIES TO SCHOOL. She has pulled her daughter out of school. She wants her little baby - who was so victimized - to be able to have a make-up date for her exams. The school said "No." Rumor has it that Mom is threatening to SUE THE SCHOOL for not letting little Miss Commando have a separate make-up date.

Where exactly is the personal responsibility in this picture? (ha - funny pun - didn't catch that until I was editing...)This is just a tiny example of what's wrong with society today. No one makes the person at fault take responsibility for their own actions. Bart and I had a lengthy discussion about this, and here's what we think we would do in this situation...

IF she survived coming home after not wearing panties (meaning if Bart didn't kill her), we'd definitely pull her from school for a few days. We would definitely try to get the yearbooks recalled. But you know what? We would make her go to school and face the embarrassment of what she did. She would take her exams at school, or get a ZERO and have to repeat the grade. But she would so be going back to school to finish the year. And you bet your sweet patootie (pun intended) that she'd lose her car, cell phone, DS, etc. for the entire summer. Or longer.

C-O-N-S-E-Q-U-E-N-C-E-S.

On a totally different note...I went to the World Famous Weeki Watchee Springs on Saturday to see the Mermaids. ("World Famous since 1947") When I got back, Bart asked "Hey - did you get to see Mermaids breathing out of garden hoses?" And I said "Yeah - actually we did!" I'm a big fan of campy little backroad Florida places. Sadly, there aren't many of them left. This one probably looks a lot like it did 40 years ago. It is every bit as cheesy as you'd expect. They have added a "water park" called Buccaneer Bay. It consists of exactly 4 waterslides, one of which was closed for renovations. If you ever lived up around Pensacola, you may remember "Styx River Water World". This was a lot like that, but not as fun. The spring was pretty, when you could get a glimpse of it through the swarm of humanity swimming in it. The little "lazy river" was fun (sit on tube, float 200 yards, haul tube out, walk back to beginning. Repeat.) The Mermaid show was pure 100% cheese. There were skinny little girls with big boobs dressed up like Mermaids and taking breaths through garden hoses. (Note: if you have a little girl and you take her here, warn her that at Weeki Watchee, Ariel is a blond, and Flounder is a turtle named Chester.)

It was fun, though. Always good to check something off the "I've-lived-in-Florida-all-but-4-years-of-my-entire-life-and-been-in-Tampa-for-almost-5-years-but-haven't-seen-it" list. We did Gasparilla this year - check. We visited the miniature railroad up in Pasco County - check. I saw Jimmy Buffett in concert - check. I went camping at Fort DeSoto park - check. Hopefully in about 4 weeks we'll add "seen a Shuttle Launch" to it.

Hard to top Mermaids with garden hoses, though. I wonder if they were wearing their panties???

Redemption & WTF?

OK. So last time I went on and on about how I am "the.worst.wife.ever." I have managed to redeem myself somewhat. Last week, I secured a babysitter and bought tickets to the opening show of "Star Trek" without Bart knowing. This - it should be noted - was really hard for me, as I am terrible at 1) lying, and 2) keeping secrets. I had his sister call claiming a broken-down car, and ask for his assistance. Then I met him where she was supposed to be. SURPRISE! He had no idea. He's a huge Star Trek fan, and he was almost literally smiling ear-to-ear the whole movie. So to my husband: "Happy Two-Weeks-After-St.-George's-Day-Day!"

The movie, by the way, was stellar (excuse the pun.) I am a lightweight Star Trek fan. I think the original TV series was hokey, but liked some of the movies. Loved the "Next Generation" TV series, and liked the "Enterprise" one with Scott Bakula too. I know enough to not be totally lost. This movie was fun, had great action, good jokes, and spectacular casting. Karl Urban, in particular, in the role of Dr. "Bones" McCoy, was dead-on. I really liked it. I liked it so much, I would go see it again (if it didn't cost is $60 to go to the movies thanks to the whole babysitter thing.)

Now onto a little rant I'm calling "WTF?" Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week. Teachers work really, really hard, and take a lot of abuse for not a lot of pay on a regular basis. Most of them are really good teachers, too. I'm all for appreciating them. But you have got to be kidding me sometimes. At my daughter's school, the principal has said that "collections" are not allowed. We cannot ask for donations of any kind and then go use that money to buy a good gift card. I am a real fan of donations. Every family gives what they can, and the teacher gets something she can actually use and enjoy. No one has to know that family A gave $40,but family B could only give $5. Instead, we get a list of things we are supposed to send in each day. One day was a hand-made card from the student. One day was a book fro the class library. One day was a cut flower. This is the day that got me. The instructions VERY CLEARLY stated a "cut flower." It could be from a store, or from your backyard - didn't matter. So - as instructed - I cut a few little plumbago flowers and a vinca, tied them together into a tiny little bouquet, and sent it in with Karlin. (This "bouquet" was hardly that - it was so small it fit in my petite 7-year old's hand.) I went in to the classroom later that day to volunteer, and what it all over the teacher's desk? Bouquets. Roses. Carnations. There were also 3 potted plants too. Great. That's just great. Way to make my daughter look crappy and make me look like a cheapy just because we did what I was supposed to do. The one-upmanship in our part of Tampa is unreal. I heard that at one area school (not ours) last Christmas, they asked each family to provide a gift card of at least a certain amount, and then they tied the little cards to a tree. The teacher walked off with something like $400 in gift cards. Are you kidding me? Not that they don't deserve it or earn it, but holy crap. What happened to making Christmas ornaments? Or giving a potted Christmas Cactus? And then there's the sheer volume of things you have to do for Christmas, Teacher Appreciation Week, and End-Of-The-Year. You have the main teacher. In pre-K, you have an assistant teacher. You have the gifted teacher. The music teacher. The art teacher. The PE Coach. The piano instructor. The riding instructor. And then you're supposed to do something nice for the admin staff too - the Principal & Asst. Principal, the Preschool Directors (there are 3 of them), the secretaries. Last week I got a note asking for a donation for the janitorial staff. So - let's say hypothetically speaking, I either donated $5 for each of those people, or I purchased something that cost $5 for each of those people. That would - with both kids at both schools - add up to a total of $85. That is a lot to fork out. And let's be realistic: you can't really buy much for $5. And most of the donation requests ask for $10 or $20. I did appreciate that this year, there seemed to be a bit more emphasis on hand-made gifts instead of hugely expensive ones. But still.

So my Teacher Appreciation gift was sub-par. WTF indeed.